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A Singapore study into the effects of Covid-19 on overweight Asians – the first of its kind, according to researchers – has found that they are more than three times as likely to be admitted to intensive care as their slimmer counterparts.
The study, by Singapore’s National Centre for Infectious Diseases, looked at 91 Covid-19 patients under the age of 60 and found that those with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher were 6.3 times more likely to need supplemental oxygen, 1.2 times more likely to need mechanical ventilation and 3.1 times more likely to be admitted to intensive care, although the intensive care finding was not statistically significant.
Previous studies in other countries have returned similar results, though most used a higher BMI threshold of 30 or above. A lower cut-off was used in Singapore as “it is known that Asian populations have higher disease risks at lower BMI thresholds, possibly due to variations in fat distribution and lipid metabolism”, the researchers said.
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